TV News
TV great Cathal O'Shannon dies at 83
Saturday 22 October 2011
Mr O'Shannon flew with the RAF during World War II - having joined with a forged baptismal certificate aged 16 - and later became a reporter with The Irish Times.
He also worked on the paper's London desk, where he met and married the love of his life, Patsy.
He was a journalist and documentary maker with RTÉ, filming the first deployment of Irish troops overseas on a UN mission to the Congo, among many other works.
But it is as a television presenter he is perhaps best remembered.
Terry Wogan described him as possibly Ireland's greatest television journalist and programmes - such as his interview with Muhammad Ali - became iconic pieces of television.
Among his other notable achievements was the Spanish Civil War documentary Even the Olives are Bleeding.
Paying tribute, Noel Curran, Director-General RTÉ, said: "Cathal O'Shannon has passed away almost on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the inception of Irish television broadcasting. He was without question one of the foremost talents of these first 50 years, with a combination of remarkable gifts.
"He could handle local Irish stories with charm, grasp major historical themes in longer documentary form, and in all forms and on all occasions he spoke to the viewer through the camera with remarkable ease and facility.
"He was, both on camera and in person, one of the most persuasive and gifted presenters ever to work with and on RTÉ. All of his present and former colleagues join in tribute to his major and singular contribution to our broadcasting. May he and his beloved Patsy rest in peace."
Glen Killane, Managing Director of RTÉ Television, said: "Cathal O'Shannon's contribution to RTÉ Television included some of the great moments in the RTÉ documentary and factual schedule over the past five decades, such as Emmet Dalton Remembers, Thou Shalt Not Kill, Rebellion and more recently his revisits to the Irish experience in World War II in Who Was Gunner Mason and the two-parter Ireland's Nazis. His seminal piece was by his own and many others' reckoning Even the Olives are Bleeding, in 1976, capturing both the Irish experience in the Spanish Civil War and the broader nature of that very bitter conflict.
"Cathal's talent was also measured in more than domestic terms. He was chosen to be one of the frontline talents on the BBC's Tonight programme in the early 1960s when the mould of British as well as Irish broadcasting was being shaped.
"His RTÉ studio interview with Muhammad Ali in 1972 was both one of the best such encounters RTÉ ever carried and one of the most relaxed and entertaining that Ali - then perhaps the world's greatest celebrity - ever did.
"And yet Cathal was equally at home travelling the highways and byways of Ireland reporting for Broadsheet and Newsbeat in the fledgling TV service days of the 1960s. He will be fondly remembered at RTÉ Television, and greatly missed."
Click here for Terms of use
|
Top 10 Most Read
Must Watch TV
-
- The Real Mr & Mrs Assad: Channel 4 Dispatches
Channel 4 Dispatches reveals a portrait of a golden couple who have become global hate figures. The programme shows intimate footage of President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma as they've never been seen on British television before, and images that help explain why the West bought the idea they were true modernisers. When Bashar took the reins of power after his father's death in 2000, the West was drawn into a hope and belief that Syria would be a new force for change in the Middle East. The Assads were seen as a glamorous couple with modern Western morals and values; he was hailed a reformer, she was the 'Rose of the Desert'. Key leaders and figures in the West welcomed the young couple, convinced that the softly spoken London-trained ophthalmologist and his beautiful British-born former investment banker wife would bring reform and modernisation to a country that had been run by an iron-fisted dictator for nearly 30 years. But it seems the West was duped. Instead of a transparent and progressive leadership, what has emerged during a year-long bloody uprising is evidence of the regime's gross systematic human rights abuses, including widespread killings and torture, while the Assads look on. Channel 4 Dispatches investigates the extent of the Assad family's culpability and the chains of command that link the President and select inner circle to the brutal crackdown.
-
- Afghanistan: The Great Game - A Personal View By Rory Stewart
Afghanistan: one of the most isolated and barren landscapes on earth is a strange place for an empire or superpower to invade. But for three of the greatest powers the world has seen, it became an unlikely target and an enduring obsession. The 19th century British invasions into Afghanistan, immortalised by Rudyard Kipling as "The Great Game", ended in huge loss of life and British retreat, and set a template for the perils of incursion in this mountainous country. In this two-part series, author, journalist and former Deputy Governor during the coalition's occupation of Iraq, Rory Stewart MP travels to Afghanistan to uncover the fears, the paranoia and perceived threats that led three very different Ssperpowers: Britain, Russia and the United States into Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day.
-
- 56 Up
Michael Apted's landmark documentary series following the lives of ordinary British people from childhoiod to adulthood and old age continues. Over the past six decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between. The series is back to discover what has happened to the group over the last seven years. And one of the original characters has decided to re-join the series after leaving almost 30 years ago.